With the development and progress of technologies, an Ethernet transfer rate has increased from 10 M (Megabit), 100 M, 1 G (Gigabit), 10 G to the current 40 G and 100 G. In addition, 40 G Ethernet and 100 G Ethernet have been widely applied. Therefore, a situation occurs in which a plurality of rates coexist. Ethernet interfaces of a plurality of rate levels cannot be interconnected. For example, in the prior art, 10 G, 40 G and 100 G Ethernet interfaces cannot be interconnected and a higher rate is not backward compatible. There are many types of device boards and a large number of spare parts and different boards need to be designed for different rates, thereby causing high maintenance costs.
Therefore, with a requirement for diversified Ethernet rates, designing of a flexible Ethernet physical layer implementation method needs to be taken into consideration to meet a requirement for an Ethernet network with diversified rate levels.